Obama Campaign Asks Court to Uphold Ohio Vote Ruling

Sept. 18 (Bloomberg) -- President Barack Obama’s campaign
organization asked a U.S. appeals court to uphold a lower-court
ruling that equalized Ohio’s number of early voting days leading
up to the Nov. 6 national election.

U.S. District Judge Peter Economus ruled Aug. 31 that all
Ohio citizens must be allowed to cast pre-Election Day ballots
through Nov. 5, agreeing with the Obama campaign and state and
national Democratic parties that Ohio’s plan to grant three more
early or absent voting days to residents in the armed forces or
living overseas was unconstitutional.

Economus last week rejected a request by Ohio Secretary of
State Jon Husted to delay enforcement of his decree until the
federal appeals court in Cincinnati and then, potentially, the
U.S. Supreme Court reviews the case. The Obama campaign told the
appeals court in a Sept. 17 brief that ending early balloting on
Nov. 2 for all except overseas residents and military personnel
imposes a significant burden on the right to vote.

“Making it more difficult for people to vote serves no
public purpose,” Donald J. McTigue, a lawyer with Obama for
America, wrote in the filing.

Ohio controls 18 of the minimum 270 Electoral College votes
that Obama or Republican candidate Mitt Romney will need to win
the presidency. Husted and Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine
have said military voters face “special burdens,” including
quick deployment and travel restrictions, justifying the three
additional days under the U.S. Constitution.

‘Different Rules’

“The Equal Protection Clause does not prevent a government
from applying different rules to those in demonstrably different
circumstances,” DeWine said in his brief.

Democrats also are challenging laws such as voter-list
purges, early-voting curbs and photo-identification mandates in
courts in Wisconsin, Colorado, Iowa, Florida and Ohio. U.S.
courts in August rejected election-related laws passed by
Republican-controlled legislatures in Ohio, Florida and Texas,
finding they violated the right to vote.

The Pennsylvania Supreme Court today set aside a ruling
that permitted enforcement of a voter photo-ID law, asking a
lower court to assess alternative forms of identification.

DeWine and Husted, both named defendants in the Obama
campaign’s suit, are Republicans. Economus was appointed to the
federal bench by President Bill Clinton, a Democrat, in 1995.

The cases are Obama for America v. Husted, 12-4055 and
12-4076, U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit
(Cincinnati).